zlacker

>>xbar+(OP)
My views on the situation aside, the clearest I saw anyone communicate the issues from a global angle was the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin

Translated here: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246

Viewed from the angle of the West, I think the message it needs to avoid isolating itself from the world is very unusual for Western media and important.

Quote:

"Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers."

And

"This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle."

>>locall+7v1
All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

Spend tons of money on iron dome to shoot down the rockets and hope that Hamas won't manage to conduct another massacre, even if "only" half the scope of October 7?

This mess features not one but two parties who currently reject the concept of a cease fire.

>>pgeorg+Cw1
>All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

And then everyone who wants peace invests lots of money and expertise over a long time to build a modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society, despite whatever setbacks, attacks, and sabotage occur from within and without.

The only way to have peace is to give people a better option than becoming terrorists.

>>anon84+bL1
This is not the approach the West took with ISIS, which involved similarly one-sided fights against terrorist forces [1], nor do I think it's an approach that would have worked. When "everyone who wants peace" doesn't include the people in control of the guns and rockets, who instead want to kill their enemies by any means necessary (and themselves do not respect international law), you can't simply dialogue your way out of it any more than Ukraine could have dialogued their way out of getting invaded by Russia.

The ICJ ruled that Hamas return the hostages unconditionally, but everyone knows that won't happen — Hamas is simply unaccountable. "Everyone who wants peace" can't even get the Red Cross access to the hostages, let alone get them returned. Vague calls for diplomacy with terrorist groups doesn't solve much, which is why people are asking you for specific solutions — it's easy to say Israel should stop fighting, but then: what should it do? How would you actually ensure it doesn't keep getting attacked, repeatedly, as Hamas continues to insist they plan to do?

1: Mosul alone had ~10,000 civilian casualties and that was less densely populated than Gaza City and didn't have tunnels: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/thousands-more-civilia...

And it similarly had about 1MM civilians displaced: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/world/middleeast/mosul-ir...

And that wasn't the end of the fight against ISIS!

>>reissb+zb2
A major problem is that the Gazan people have very legitimate problems with Israel, and this leads to a situation in which enough of them become militant to cause serious problems. Solving that seems like it needs a more wholistic approach than simply trying to get rid of the militants at the cost of causing everyone else to have an even bigger beef with Israel.

>>amluto+Jc2
I fully accept that many Palestinians are motivated to take up arms against the Israelis by a justifiable sense of grievance, but the issue of anti-Semitism long pre-dates the establishment of Israel and exists far beyond the Palestinian Territories. I really don't want to understate this point - from an outside perspective, it is almost impossible to comprehend the depth of hatred against Jews that exists across the Middle East.

Improving the living conditions of Palestinians is almost certainly a necessary precondition to lasting peace, but it is far from sufficient. Unfortunately, we are now stuck in a very stubborn vicious cycle - the Israel-Palestine conflict perpetuates anti-Semitism, which perpetuates the conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War#...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world

>>jdietr+Nq2
>the issue of anti-Semitism long pre-dates the establishment of Israel

From your second source that seems to not be the case, at least not in serious degree. "Traditionally, Jews in the Muslim world were considered to be People of the Book and were subjected to dhimmi status. They were afforded relative security against persecution, provided they did not contest the varying inferior social and legal status imposed on them under Islamic rule. While there were antisemitic incidents before the 20th century, during this time antisemitism in the Arab world increased greatly." And later, "The situation of Jews was comparatively better than their European counterparts, though they still suffered persecution." There is more detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...

Anecdotally, I've heard that before the establishment of Israel, relations between the two groups were much less hostile. Muslims and Jews would, for example, have their Jewish or Muslim neighbors watch over their kids during holy days when they'd have to go to mosque/temple. There is also a long history of Jews being treated fairly well in the Arab/Muslim world - better indeed than they were in Christian lands where pogroms were much more common (it's astonishing how many times Germany, in a state of high fervor, decided that the most appropriate thing to do would be to massacre the Jews again). Again, anecdotally, the "depth of hatred against Jews" in the Arabs I've spoken with has little to do with Jews and much to do with the actions of the state of Israel and what it does in the name of Jews.